Tricky Things- Legs

[poliphilo]

I took Fabrizio out the back to kick a ball around. He was up for that, but even more interested in the big stone step between our yard and the path that runs along the back of the houses. He could get up it by himself- no problem- but getting down again was a challenge- and he had to hold my hand or he'd have fallen flat on his face. So what is the secret? What do you have to do with your legs to get safely from A (up here) to B (down there)? We practised the manoeuvre over and over and over.

Comments

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

Ha! I actually know the answer to this, because this is something that I'm working on personally. (I live a mostly flat life, but there are inexorably times when you need to do stairs.)

The secret is to know where the step is, and then hold your head up, look straight forward and NOT look at the step. This allows your head, spine, and hips to be aligned, which means that your core muscles will be engaged.

I think that the reason it's so hard is because you want to look at the step, but that actually makes the process physically more difficult.

Relearning how to go up and down steps was one of my personal projects for 2009, and it was surprisingly difficult. There's a lot going on in your body. (What prompted it is that I had to climb steps to take my elephant ride in August.)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

So there's a degree of faith involved- faith that the step you aren't looking at will actually be there to receive your foot.

I hadn't thought of this, but the child who is taking his or her first steps in the material world is still aquiring that faith.

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

Whoops, I addressed the faith question above. I think of it as the child who is taking his or her first steps is still learning how to make those calculations.:) (Which goes back to the beginner mind discussion above.)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Here's something else that happened yesterday. We were walking down the back yard and Fabrizio halted in from of a large clump of grass and wouldn't go past it. He didn't know what it was, whether it was animate or inanimate, friend or foe- he just saw it came up to his waist and that it had blades- and decided he wasn't taking any risks.